"He was raised to think like his dad, narrow mind, full of hate. On the road to nowhere fast, til the grace of God got in the way. Then he saw the light and hit his knees, and cried and said a prayer. Rose up a brand new man, left the old one right there. Here's to the strong, thanks to the brave. Don't give up hope some people change. Against all odds, against the grain, love finds a way, some people change." Montgomery Gentry 'Some People Change'

"They are here." Victor said with a smile as the commotion erupted downstairs. Kaylee put her hands on the cold wall and pulled herself to her feet with a rattling of chains.

"Damien will be arriving here soon, dear Kaylee, and then the fun will really begin." he said and a flash of red passed over his eyes.

"You underestimate my family, you bastard. You, your subs and your youngest son will be the only ones dying here today."

"And you underestimate me and my army. I am hoping that my youngest son meets his end today, that is why I did not warn him that danger would be coming."

"You want your son to die?" Kaylee exclaimed. "I thought you loved Rotan since he seems to be the most like you." Victor curled his nose as he sat down in a wooden chair and crossed his long legs.

"A true demon does not feel an emotion quite as useless as love, dear Kaylee. Only my soft, oldest son feels those ridiculous things." he smoothed his long coat around his knees and smiled coldly. "And as far as Rotan goes, the boy is a bit too crazy for me to put up with. Do you have any idea what it is like to have a conversation with someone who is constantly cutting themselves to give them a moment of pleasure?" Kaylee felt a shiver run down her spine and she hoped that Jake had already gotten to Angela and freed her from whatever horror she'd been living in the dungeon with Rotan.

"You may as well relax, my dear Kaylee. Damien, being the self-sacrificing abomination that he is, will come up here alone in moments and he will walk in thinking to catch me off guard and kill me, but the surprise will be on him. I am stronger than he can even dream of being and will not be killed by my weak, soft, kind-hearted son." Victor sneered as he said these last words and Kaylee hoped he was wrong.

She knew Damien was strong. More than once he had taken out big numbers of soldier and subs without so much as getting a drop of blood on his always perfectly clean white shirt. She hoped Victor was wrong about being stronger than her mate.

888

Damien worked hard to hold his anger at bay as he got closer and closer to his father's chambers. He was surprised that he did not encounter a single sub demon once he got past the entryway where everyone else was busy fighting. It was almost as if his father wanted him to come.

Damien arrived at the thick wooden door, that led to the hellish hole that was his fathers room. Countless mortal women had met their deaths in this room at his father's cold hands. The only thing Damien was sure of, was that if Victor had done with Kaylee what he did with most of his prisoners, Damien would kill him nice and slow.

"Do not stand out there all day, son, come on in. Dear Kaylee and I are just having a nice conversation." his father's cold voice came from inside. Damien opened the door and stepped into his fathers room. His eyes immediately flew to Kaylee who was standing against the wall in a green silk gown. Damien's eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed when he saw the silver chains on her wrists and ankles but other than those she seemed to be unharmed.

Victor took advantage of Damien's moment of distraction and lunged at his son, his nails sharpening and slicing across Damien's cheek, leaving five bloody cuts in their wake. The force of Victor's body sent Damien flying backward and as he collided with the stone wall, he heard it crack behind him and the air rushed from his lungs as he fell to the floor.

"Damien!" Kaylee screamed as Victor laughed and stood over him.

"You were foolish to think you could take me son. Living among the 'lower beings' has made you too sure of your own strength and you have forgotten that I am higher than you on the chain."

"We're on different chains, father." Damien replied as he jumped to his feet and Victor took several steps back.

"I should have killed you the instant you came screaming out of your mother's womb." Victor sneered.

"Yes, you should have." Damien replied and he lunged at his father. Kaylee watched in horror as the two men wrestled around the room, breaking furniture, cracking stones and leaving blood trails behind them. She couldn't keep from crying out with fear when Victor pulled a sword that he had had concealed beneath his shirt and raked it across Damien's chest, leaving a wide cut through the white fabric, which quickly turned dark red as Damien's blood poured from him.

Victor smiled with triumph. He raised his sword to ram it down into Damien's chest and render him helpless, so he could chain him as well, when Damien suddenly lunged forward and knocked Victor backward, slamming him back down in his chair and sending his sword clattering across the floor.

"I should have killed you eight hundred years ago when I realized what a monster you were." Damien snarled, his blue eyes flashing with anger.

"Yes, you should have." Victor sneered as he slid his hand down to his side and closed it around the hilt of the knife he had hidden there.

"I guess I will have to settle for killing you now." Damien hissed and then in a movement so quick that Kaylee would have missed it if she had blinked, Damien pulled two long Katana swords from his sides and in a cutting motion, much like a pair of scissors, he severed his father's head and it fell to the floor with a wet thud and rolled to a stop at Kaylee's feet.

Kaylee was staring down at Victors lifeless blue eyes and she heard the high pitched noise that Damien's swords made as he slid them back in their sheaths. She looked up as she heard him walking toward her and the worry and love in his eyes took her breath away.

"Are you okay, my wolf?" he asked as he smoothed soft, stray strands of her red hair from her face. Kaylee nodded as she gazed up at him.

"Yes. He didn't hurt me." she replied. "How are Angela and Faith, I've been so scared for them."

"You worry too much about others." Damien said gently as he used the key he had taken from his father's pocket to unhook her wrists and ankles. "Faith is fine. Francis brought her home, he did not let her stay here. And Jake was going to find Angela but I don't know how she is." Kaylee nodded and wrapped her arms tight around him as he held her close and kissed her hair.

"I was so scared about what he would do to you. If I had any doubts that what I feel for you is what poets and writers have always called love, they are gone now. You are my heart beat, beautiful wolf, and the thought of you alone, in pain and scared filled me with a helplessness and a rage that I had never felt before."

"I'm okay, Damien." she promised as she kissed the bottom of his jaw. "He didn't hurt me, he was waiting for you to get here so you would have to watch him hurt me."

"Let's get out of here." Damien said as he pulled away and kissed her forehead. "I never want to see this place again."

"A week at the beach sounds good to me." Kaylee replied.

888

"They just keep coming!" Evan exclaimed as he decapitated a sub that had just sliced his arm open with its rotted claws.

"I can't take much more of this! Where the hell are Jake and Damien?" Kent demanded as he ducked down to avoid a fist aimed at his head and kicked out his foot, breaking the subs leg.

"STOP THIS!" Everyone in the room stopped instantly. Every sub demon, werewolf, vampire, and immortal mate stopped fighting and looked up at the stairway, to see what man had just spoken in a tone that they couldn't help but obey.

"Kaylee...." Evan and Kayleb both said at once as they breathed a sigh of relief when they saw her standing beside Damien with her arm wrapped firmly around his waist.

"Subs, you are no longer under my fathers command, you are now under mine." Damien said as he kept one hand behind his back.

"Why should we listen to you?" one of the subs asked. Damien held his arm high in the air, lifting his father's severed head by the hair for all to see. He threw the head down and it rolled to the ground at a subs foot.

"What are your commands?" the sub asked as he looked up at the new demon king.

"You stay in this castle. You do not harm another mortal. If you do and I find out, I will come back and I will bring an army of my own and every one of you will die." Damien replied. He led Kaylee down the steps as screams filled the air from the dungeon below.

Kaylee ran to Evan and Kayleb who both wrapped her in a tight hug.

"I'm so glad you're okay." Evan said. Kaylee looked at them both, they were covered in sweat and blood and looked exhausted but they were smiling happily.

"Let's go home." she said and the family headed for the door. Hunter stopped before walking out and looked at Kayleb.

"I'm gonna go get Jake." he said and Kayleb nodded.

"I'll wait outside for you." he said. Hunter walked through the piles of dead sub bodies, glad that the living subs had left the entry room and gone to other parts of the castle to lick their wounds, and he jumped down in the hole Jake had made in the floor.

His eyes widened when he saw Jake standing over a screaming Rotan, driving small knives into different parts of his body and leaving them there. Rotan looked like he was undergoing a very painful acupuncture procedure, or perhaps like one mean ass porcupine had gotten hold of him.

"We're leaving." Hunter said and Jake nodded but didn't look away from his prisoner. "Damien killed Victor, the subs were forced to listen to their new king and retreat, and Kaylee is safe." Jake nodded again.

"Good." he said. Hunter shifted his feet and looked away from the bloody mess that was Rotan. He couldn't help but feel the vampire in him coming alive at the scent of all the blood but the man in him was scared shitless that Jake was capable of doing that to another person.

"Are you coming with us?" Hunter asked.

"I'll be home when I'm done." Jake replied coldly and Hunter nodded.

"Okay then, I'm leaving." Hunter said and he quickly jumped back up through the hole and to the floor above.

"Note to self." he muttered out loud as he began searching through the bodies for his lost hat. "Do not ever make my father-in-law angry." He smiled with victory as he found his hat and after wiping some sub demon brains off it and onto his blood covered pants, he plopped it on his head and headed for the door.

888

"Are you drunk?" Evan demanded of his mate as they all dashed into the kitchen. Raquel shook her head as she stood up and weaved slightly.

"Of course not." she said.

"Yes she is." Bethany said with a laugh from where she sat glossy eyed. "She drank a whole damn bottle by herself."

"Lane is gonna be so mad when he finds out his liquor is gone." Jordan added and every woman at the table snorted with laughter. Damien's eyes widened as he looked at his mother and realized she was drunk and laughing as well. He hadn't heard his mother laugh... ever. If alcohol was what it took to make her unafraid, he'd give her a lifetime supply.

"Are you drunk too?" Evan asked Vanessa and she shook her head.

"No." she said and then she smiled guiltily. "Maybe just a little." she admitted. Charles came running into the kitchen as Greg walked in from outside.

"You all stink!" Greg exclaimed and Joey rolled her eyes.

"We can't all be pretty like you all the time. Sometimes we have to kick a little ass."

"She has attitude after a battle." Kent said with a smile.

"Where is Jake and Kayleb?" Charles demanded.

"And where is Hunter?" Laney added, seeming to be the only halfway sober woman at the table. Before anyone could reply the air shimmered and Hunter and Kayleb appeared.

"Sorry we were late." Hunter said as Laney jumped to her feet and ran to him, throwing her arms around him tightly, not caring that he was covered in sub demon gore. "I had to find my hat."

"Where is my dad?" Laney asked.

"Busy... uh.... With his own form of revenge." Charles nodded, understanding what Hunter was saying.

"Lane said my mom was in bad shape but he wouldn't let any of us come up.... Is she okay?"

"Physically I think so.... Mentally though, I don't know. I think Rotan put her through hell." Hunter replied kissing her soft brown curls.

Damien slammed his fist down on the table, causing the drunk women to gasp and then break down into fits of giggles.

"This should have never happened!" he said angrily. "I should have killed both of them a long time ago."

"Don't blame yourself, Damien...." Kaylee started but Damien pulled away from her.

"I need some space." he said and he walked out of the house leaving Kaylee feeling suddenly cold.

"That damn emotionally crippled demon is going to be the death of me." she exclaimed as she stormed from the room to get first dibs on the third floor shower.

"I take it they are dead?" Charles asked and Kayleb nodded.

"They've been taken care of... It's over." he said. Vanessa sighed as she leaned back in her chair.

"Is it always like this around here?"

"Yes." Nearly everyone said at once and Vanessa sighed.

"Thank goodness for Jack Daniels."